I forgot that on tuesday, me marc and steph went downtown vegas. They needed a marrage license, and I needed a set of poker chips.

We took a trolly to the stratosphere thren took a taxi downtown, I got off at the gambler's general store and marc and steph went to the court house.

I had seen the gambler's general store's website and I found the store to be quite unique.

They seemed to be selling an outrageous amount of poker chip sets, no doubt thanks to the wpt and poker on tv in general.

The neat thing is you can buy a case then pick individual chips if you want.

I got a 300 chip aluminum case and then bought 150 $1 chips, 100 $5 chips, 50 $25 and 50 $100 chips, then just to have in case I bought 10 $500 and 5 $1000 chips.

I then walked the 7 blocks downtown to find marc and steph. We got our free gift at the 4 queens (luggage tag) had subway and pizza for lunch then headed back to the luxor. That's when I sat down at the poker table around 7pm.

--Chris Falco

I wake up on Tuesday, I had actually changed hotel rooms so I was on the 19th floor at this point, called the front desk trying to get a late check out so I could sleep until noon or so.

Our rooms situtation was all crazy, basically I only had this room for 1 night, but Marc and Steph were checking into a new room today, so we called the front desk and had them check into my room, so I didnt have to be out by 1, yes! Extra sleep!

I woke up finally, took a shower and checked everything out. Went to the pool for a while. Then moved my stuff back to the first room. I sat down at the Luxor poker room around 7pm.

<---MARATHON SESSION---> Bought in for $40, sat in a full 2/4 game.

I noticed a older man (50's-60's) that had played in the 2/4 kill game with me earlier in the week at monte carlo. We had a good time joking about poker and people playing, getting sucked-out all the time.

He mentioned a situation when he was playing where he was beaten on a heads up showdown but the other player showed his pocket queens (the best hand) then turned them over and threw them in the muck face down. The older man thought he had won since the other player mucked. The other players stated they had seen the other player cards and the dealer agreed. The older man didn't want to cause a stir so he let it slide.

After he told me this story, I completely agreed that he should have been pushed the pot, since it is the PLAYERS RESPONSIBILITY to protect their hand at all times.

The older man stated he didn't feel back about letting it go becuase he had seen the other player's better hand. At one point I even showed him the rule board at the Luxor that states a player must protect their hand at all times.

Anyways, it was quite fun playing with him and I believe he was from MN.

There was a few other really fun people at that table, one gentleman I ended up playing with the next night as well, a decent player who was fun to talk with and rip on the fishes about.

At this point a player sits down with about $50 in chips. He is clearly an "any two cards" player. However, he luck is amazing as he makes over a dozen straights. Cashes out over $350 (in a 2/4 game with no kill, mind you).

As soon as he left the we all started talking mad crap about him, I mean he was winning wil 69o j2o, 34s crazy things you should never play, even on the blinds.

There was also a really cool dealer, unfortunately I've forgotten his name, he was older (60's or so) plays on Party, used to be a professional bowler, and is now a dealer at the Luxor. He was really fun to talk to while playing, we talked about good poker books, how dumb the fish can get on party. How soft the omaha split games are online, and etc.

8 bottles of water, 9 hot chocolates, 11 hours and a shot of jager later I left with $180 and my room and food comps.

I walked over to the Pyramid Cafe and got some pancakes and bacon. Ate breakfast then walked back to my room to get some sleep. Finally got there about 9:30am.

End of day three

--Chris Falco

I get about 3 hours of sleep, on the floor, because I'm too nice to wake anyone up with I get in at 9am. They all decide to goto the pool, I relax in the room, and then goto the lobby to check in to the other room. I move my things up to the new room (floor 19). I take a nice long shower, get dressed, relax for a bit, then go back to find everyone. I get some sub-par pizza with my cousin Matt at some pizza place at New York, New York. (Just won a $10+1 SNG on party while writing this, final hand? My A7o took down KQo, High card ace).

We met up with Hadjii who had flown in earlier in the day, we then proceeded to cruise around the strip, I meet up with grubby from pokergrub.com at the tables at Excalabur, we play a few hands in a 2-5 spread game, I hate spread games but it's all I could find without a huge list.

I get AQ on the first hand, usually if I sit at a table and get a decent hand I take it to the river as a advertising play, I find people think if I raise preflop ill call it all the way down. I get paid off nicely when I get aa or kk and all undercards flop. Anyways it was very cool playing with grubby, even though he owned me in the first blogger world tour event. And I missed the second stop because I was in vegas.


Late at night, Matt, Hadjii and I took a cab down to Circus Circus and walked around that area, stopping for $1.49 3/4 lb hot dogs and $1.49 nachos. They played a few hands of blackjack but there was no energy in the place at 4am. We left and found a half-awake craps table with 3x-4x-5x odds, I plunked down $40, Matt and Hadjii $100 each. The first shooter passed a few points and made us some capital. Finally the dice got to us. You have to understand, when we play craps, we're loud, it's EXCITING, you have to get the whole table rocking to have a good time. I passed a few points and then Hadjii crapped out quickly, Matt had a nice run, building his stack up and doubling me to $85 or so. Only 1 person threw the dice from the other side and so I got the dice back rather quickly, then the run began, the hardways were coming in, at one point Matt bets $2 on the 9's hopped. (a 15-1 payoff, and when you win the bet stays) I rolled a nine four times in a row, each time paying him $15 he's probably kicking himself for not bumping his bet up to $5 after the 3rd nine.

I finally crapped out, then Hadjii hit some major hardways and Matt passed a few, I went big on the last few rolls that sevened out, so I left with $80, up $40, Matt was the big winner cashing out with somewhere around $325. I got back to the room somewhere around 4-7am--ish....I think.

Day 2 complete.

--Chris Falco

After taking a week to recover I'm finally writing up the trip report. Foward to checking bags in at Midway airport in Chicago.

It's about 2 pm on Sunday, the Southwest airline check in line is fairly short, about 10-12 people, we quickly check in and proceed to find the restrooms. Present at this point in the trip are my good buddy Marc, his girlfriend Stephanie, and my cousin Matt. We are meeting up with the rest later.

I've made it pretty clear to the rest of my crew that I'm going to vegas to play poker, and everyone seems to have their own agenda. (getting drunk, getting married, getting the hell out of Sycamore, etc...)

After reading the stories of the tiltboys from tiltboys.com, I've decided that the best plan of attack is to stay Six Sigmas Out all weekend.

SIDENOTE (from tiltboys.com): [There are] rare individuals who live on the far right hand side of the normal distribution for luck meted out over one's lifetime. The consensus is that they are actually about six sigmas out. A sort of statistical singularity, if you will. ]

Since being in Vegas, and planning on playing a bit of poker, and already suffering the most demeaning suck-outs ever from Party fishes, I figured it's time to find where Six Sigmas out is and firmly plant my ass there for the duration of the week.

The flight out was normal, although we didn't get seats together due to our boarding passes (no assigned seats on Southwest), we were the last group to board.

The flight crew was amusing and friendly, and informed us how to survive a water landing should the situation arise between Chicago and Las Vegas, (I wrote it down just for future reference).

I was able to reread the good parts of Championship Satelite Strategy during the flight. Also, I've rerealised that my Ipod is my best friend during public commutes.

(Before I left I ripped the entire audio of the movie Rounders and put it on my Ipod.)

We touched down on time and proceeded to look for our baggage, on the way off the plane I was joking around with Marc and was talking to some guy about taking bets about who's bags would come out first. I circled Marc just for spite, and to test the guy to see if he knew about the tiltboys, since they bet on that kind of stuff too.

Marc thought we should catch a shuttle but for 4 people going to the Luxor, it was only going to be $15 or so and I didn't feel like waiting for the shuttles.

We grabbed the cab and had a good conversation with the driver who was from Southern Illinois. We passed a guy holding a sign that said "Why lie? I need beer".

We got to the Luxor, and I waited to check in, which took about 20-30 minutes. We put our stuff in the room and decided to go look for Matt who took an earlier flight and was supposed to meet us in the casino.

My cousin Matt and I went down to find him. After walking around the casino several times, I get a familiar cry of "Thirty Three, Hard Six" and turned around to find Matt at the craps table..... wait for it.....

up about a grand.

I got on and promptly lost $50, enough of that, Matt went back to the room and put his bags away.

I signed up for the 8:30 $25 buyin Tournament at the Luxor.

The rooms were nice and clean, everything was themed like Egyptian tombs. The view was good, and we were on the 18th floor, so it was very cool looking over the balcony as well.

We all went down to the Pyramid cafe for some dinner/breakfast/keno action. Waiting in line with 100's of Drunken Nascar Fans who just left the Nextel Cup rac. We all went in on a Keno ticket for $1 each and broke even, then won $10 on the second try. I had some excellent pancakes and make it to the 8:30 tournament with 3 minutes to spare thanks to an excellent waitress who rushed my order.

I finished 12th or so, Matt made it to the final table, and had to post the BB forcing him to go all in on the first hand. He actually hit top pair but someone hit a flush by the river and he would have had kicker problems anyways.

The tournament structure is kind of lame anyways T300 for $25 and extra T50 for $3 dealer toke before the tourney begins.

I won the first hand with 99, and the only other hand I won was with 99 later on. After that the blinds went up faster than I could catch cards, my final AJ allin lost to 55.

Afterwards we meet up with Amanda and Adam who had flown in later. Then Marc and Steph went out and the rest of us started walking up the strip, I ended up playing a 2/4 kill game at the Monte Carlo that saw some great action.

Best hand: I get AA and the flop comes A99. There's tons of action, betting is capped on the turn, and I take down a $100+ pot in a 2/4 game (kill was not active in this hand) mostly from the lady with the K9 who made a boat on the turn. She had caught a royal flush 20 mins before that (using only 1 card, no jackpot).

I played several hours. Then we kept walking up the strip. Played some Pai-Gow poker at Barbary coast. I won $40 playing craps there as well.

We stopped by the Flamingo (where I stayed in October) Matt hit some bonus mode on a nickel slot machine, won like 45 free spins, and won 900+ nickels ($45+)

I made my way to the Bellagio to play their $100 ($1/2 blinds)buyin NL cash game. I found out it was changed to $200 ($2/4 blinds) on thursday, lame. I played anyways, folded for about 15 minutes until I got QJo in mid position in an unraised pot. I limped in, and the flop came KQJ, I checked then called a $50 bet a Q came off on the turn. I bet out $50 and was called.

At this point my stack in down to $75 and there's about $330 in the pot. The river is a rag, and I'm heads up with a guy that has a rack of $700+ infront of him (meaning he won at least $400 of that. I'm a bit worried about him holding KQ, so I check to him, he takes a long time deciding, and finally checks showing my a q9, I take it down, and the table gives me quite a bit of crap about not betting my hand.

I feel I played ok, I was worried about being beat and I hadn't gotten a good read on the big stacks at that point. Plus, I figured I'd push all in If I was bet into on the river, (I did have a boat).

I played a couple hours longer, at one point I get QQ, 2 off the button. UTG raises to $30, there's 3 callers, I bump it up to $125, the player 1 to my left (who has around $1500) raises it about $525 the button finally calls. The rest all fold.

Board is J 10 8 - 2 - 9 rainbow. The raiser shows down KK, the button (who I beat with the Boat) shows AQ and takes down the thousdand dollar pot with the Q high straight. (I would have split it with him)

Finally I left at 8 am, with $202 in chips. I kept the chips so I would have to come back to play again.

Got to bed by 9am, and got 3 hours of sleep. Day 1 complete. (And 9 hrs of day 2)

To be continued.



--Chris Falco

After taking a week to recover I'm finally writing up the trip report. Foward to checking bags in at Midway airport in Chicago.

It's about 2 pm on Sunday, the Southwest airline check in line is fairly short, about 10-12 people, we quickly check in and proceed to find the restrooms. Present at this point in the trip are my good buddy Marc, his girlfriend Stephanie, and my cousin Matt. We are meeting up with the rest later.

I've made it pretty clear to the rest of my crew that I'm going to vegas to play poker, and everyone seems to have their own agenda. (getting drunk, getting married, getting the hell out of Sycamore, etc...)

After reading the stories of the tiltboys from tiltboys.com, I've decided that the best plan of attack is to stay Six Sigmas Out all weekend.

SIDENOTE (from tiltboys.com): [There are] rare individuals who live on the far right hand side of the normal distribution for luck meted out over one's lifetime. The consensus is that they are actually about six sigmas out. A sort of statistical singularity, if you will. ]

Since being in Vegas, and planning on playing a bit of poker, and already suffering the most demeaning suck-outs ever from Party fishes, I figured it's time to find where Six Sigmas out is and firmly plant my ass there for the duration of the week.

The flight out was normal, although we didn't get seats together due to our boarding passes (no assigned seats on Southwest), we were the last group to board.

The flight crew was amusing and friendly, and informed us how to survive a water landing should the situation arise between Chicago and Las Vegas, (I wrote it down just for future reference).

I was able to reread the good parts of Championship Satelite Strategy during the flight. Also, I've rerealised that my Ipod is my best friend during public commutes.

(Before I left I ripped the entire audio of the movie Rounders and put it on my Ipod.)

We touched down on time and proceeded to look for our baggage, on the way off the plane I was joking around with Marc and was talking to some guy about taking bets about who's bags would come out first. I circled Marc just for spite, and to test the guy to see if he knew about the tiltboys, since they bet on that kind of stuff too.

Marc thought we should catch a shuttle but for 4 people going to the Luxor, it was only going to be $15 or so and I didn't feel like waiting for the shuttles.

We grabbed the cab and had a good conversation with the driver who was from Southern Illinois. We passed a guy holding a sign that said "Why lie? I need beer".

We got to the Luxor, and I waited to check in, which took about 20-30 minutes. We put our stuff in the room and decided to go look for Matt who took an earlier flight and was supposed to meet us in the casino.

My cousin Matt and I went down to find him. After walking around the casino several times, I get a familiar cry of "Thirty Three, Hard Six" and turned around to find Matt at the craps table..... wait for it.....

up about a grand.

I got on and promptly lost $50, enough of that, Matt went back to the room and put his bags away.

I signed up for the 8:30 $25 buyin Tournament at the Luxor.

The rooms were nice and clean, everything was themed like Egyptian tombs. The view was good, and we were on the 18th floor, so it was very cool looking over the balcony as well.

We all went down to the Pyramid cafe for some dinner/breakfast/keno action. Waiting in line with 100's of Drunken Nascar Fans who just left the Nextel Cup rac. We all went in on a Keno ticket for $1 each and broke even, then won $10 on the second try. I had some excellent pancakes and make it to the 8:30 tournament with 3 minutes to spare thanks to an excellent waitress who rushed my order.

I finished 12th or so, Matt made it to the final table, and had to post the BB forcing him to go all in on the first hand. He actually hit top pair but someone hit a flush by the river and he would have had kicker problems anyways.

The tournament structure is kind of lame anyways T300 for $25 and extra T50 for $3 dealer toke before the tourney begins.

I won the first hand with 99, and the only other hand I won was with 99 later on. After that the blinds went up faster than I could catch cards, my final AJ allin lost to 55.

Afterwards we meet up with Amanda and Adam who had flown in later. Then Marc and Steph went out and the rest of us started walking up the strip, I ended up playing a 2/4 kill game at the Monte Carlo that saw some great action.

Best hand: I get AA and the flop comes A99. There's tons of action, betting is capped on the turn, and I take down a $100+ pot in a 2/4 game (kill was not active in this hand) mostly from the lady with the K9 who made a boat on the turn. She had caught a royal flush 20 mins before that (using only 1 card, no jackpot).

I played several hours. Then we kept walking up the strip. Played some Pai-Gow poker at Barbary coast. I won $40 playing craps there as well.

We stopped by the Flamingo (where I stayed in October) Matt hit some bonus mode on a nickel slot machine, won like 45 free spins, and won 900+ nickels ($45+)

I made my way to the Bellagio to play their $100 ($1/2 blinds)buyin NL cash game. I found out it was changed to $200 ($2/4 blinds) on thursday, lame. I played anyways, folded for about 15 minutes until I got QJo in mid position in an unraised pot. I limped in, and the flop came KQJ, I checked then called a $50 bet a Q came off on the turn. I bet out $50 and was called.

At this point my stack in down to $75 and there's about $330 in the pot. The river is a rag, and I'm heads up with a guy that has a rack of $700+ infront of him (meaning he won at least $400 of that. I'm a bit worried about him holding KQ, so I check to him, he takes a long time deciding, and finally checks showing my a q9, I take it down, and the table gives me quite a bit of crap about not betting my hand.

I feel I played ok, I was worried about being beat and I hadn't gotten a good read on the big stacks at that point. Plus, I figured I'd push all in If I was bet into on the river, (I did have a boat).

I played a couple hours longer, at one point I get QQ, 2 off the button. UTG raises to $30, there's 3 callers, I bump it up to $125, the player 1 to my left (who has around $1500) raises it about $525 the button finally calls. The rest all fold.

Board is J 10 8 - 2 - 9 rainbow. The raiser shows down KK, the button (who I beat with the Boat) shows AQ and takes down the thousdand dollar pot with the Q high straight. (I would have split it with him)

Finally I left at 8 am, with $202 in chips. I kept the chips so I would have to come back to play again.

Got to bed by 9am, and got 3 hours of sleep. Day 1 complete. (And 9 hrs of day 2)

To be continued.


--Chris Falco

My friend just got married in vegas, Here are the first pictures from the post-wedding toast in the lounge. I'll take & send more soon.



--Chris Falco

Here's some pics 18th floor.



--Chris Falco

1 hr 45 minutes to lift off.

--Chris Falco

Ok, leaving for the airport in an hour, here's the breakdown. I'm driving with with 3 people who are on my flight, 1 other friend is flying out right now, my 2 other compadres are getting in around 8 or so tonight.

One guy is getting in monday, and four other people I know are getting to vegas tuesday. There's already 1 person I know in vegas, and 1 friend that moved there last year.

My flight is at 2:55, and I'm hoping to be all checked in and ready for action by 6.

Got my ipod charged up, my poker books packed, and I'm officially in 6 Sigma mode. .

Jpegs of the week will follow as well as updates. $50 says my 2 friends get married sometime before thursday. I'm betting 21 hours of sleep total, and a net income of +$280

Oh yeah, "the river is going to be my best friend this week". "the river is going to be my best friend this week". "the river is going to be my best friend this week".

I'll keep saying it until it comes true.

--Chris Falco

Until [size=5]VEGAS BABY![/font]

I'd like to thank the late night fish at partypoker for funding my bankroll and my trip this spring break.

Also, big ups to party for updating their software, now if they could just do something about their server stability. It's nice to see the online poker leader looking over their shoulder and not simply becoming lazy.

I personally think the showdown exposes are the best change, I wish it would pause 1 second after exposing the cards and finishing out dealing the board. Still though this is a change for the better.

Im not sure about the layout yet, but I'll know more in a week or so when I get back from [size=5]VEGAS BABY![/font].

I closed all my accts, (ok ok I have 80 cents in my party acct.) and the cash is going to vegas with me.

Most of it is earmarked for the Bellagio's $100 NL cash game.

I'll be posting pics all week via my sidekick's camera phone. And I'm hoping to meet up with grubby sometime as well.

My plan is to try and play mostly at the Luxor (to get room rate+ tourneys) The Orleans for tourneys, Monte carlo and Mirage becuase I like their rooms, The Bellagio for the $$ and the only NL game that's spread regularly, and maybe Excalibur becuase grubby is staying there and they have bonuses if you get your pocket aces cracked (and mine always do).

before sunday though things are going to be nuts here, I'm in the process of remodeling my kitchen, over the last few weeks we've completely gutted the room, moved everything to the basement, put the fridge in the garage. and have started rebuilding.

We got the walls up and painted, the electrical work in done, the hardwood floor was put in this week. Tommorow (friday) I have to take my cat with me to work so they can sand and stain the hardwood floor. When they stain it everyone has to leave the house for 2-3 hours. So Patches is coming to work with me.

It's crazy not having a sink, having all my food in the basement, and having to go out in the garage to get stuff out of the fridge.

I haven't been able to make a frozen pizza for over a month now =(

I'm breaking the curve for average take out and delivery per week too I'm afraid.

Hopefully, while I'm in [size=5]VEGAS BABY![/font] the cabinets will be put in and the appliances delivered. The we can get the countertops ordered (they take 2 weeks) and then maybe by the end of march I can get a sink back in the kitchen.

I havent even left for this vegas trip and I'm already planning my next one, July 28-Aug 3/4 ish for the Defcon convention, just 3 weeks after going to New York for [url=http://www.hope.net]The Fourth Hope Conference[/url]

Lets hope I win enough $ at the tables this trip to afford all ths summer traveling.

Is it me or should the Travel Channel just change their name to The Vegas Channel, I swear it's all I ever see on their, is "how to beat vegas" "how to cheat vegas" "Best hotels of vegas" "best bathrooms in vegas" "best hookers of vegas"..

..ok maybe not the last one but you get my drift.

Between that and the WPT, (and that guy from cheer's new show Made in America ) there's nothing else ever on when I turn it on.

Actually I like the travel channel this way, maybe if they stuck to the current format and added blocks of E's Wild On, and maybe randomly threw in a Girls Gone Wild episode just to keep me on my toes, I would throw away my remote control.

Did I mention [size=5]VEGAS BABY![/font]??

ok ok, updates to follow, until then,

Good luck flopping big hands (and not the second highest boat i.e. yesterday)


--Chris Falco